I trust most of us saw the captured exchange between our President and Russia's Medvedev wherein our Dear Leader tells the Russians that after his "last election" he will be ready to negotiate the nuclear arms treaty with them that he is not willing to attempt to sell to the American people before the election.

As Charles Krauthammer astutely points out, the key word here is "last"-- as in he no longer needs to fear the vote of the American people.

This thread is for exploring just where Dear Leader might be looking to take us.

I had seen some whiffs of it, but this plants the issue more squarely than I had been willing to acknowledge to myself. For fear of it being deleted elsewhere, I post it here in its entirety:=============

Washington - Despite controversy over the March 16 Executive Order issued by the Obama administration, apologists are passing the word "Move along. Nothing to see here." But is "business as usual" really the case? To answer that question let's take a closer look at executive order National Defense Resources Preparedness (NDRP). The executive order it ostensibly updates is a 'continuity of government' type scenario in case of nuclear holocaust. Can the same be said of NDRP? Sec. 102. Policy. The United States must have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime (emphasis mine) No, this is NOT a parallel to a 1950's executive order. It builds off of it, expands it, and where it laid the groundwork for taking the reins in case of emergency, NDRP actively takes the reins as if that emergency is upon us. The justification for this is in NDRP section 102 (quoted above). The President has decided these Continuity of Government plans need to go into effect in peacetime, not just in time of war. In short, these 'Secretaries' are given complete authority to reorganize civilian labor and/or production quotas within their given field: PART II - PRIORITIES AND ALLOCATIONS Sec. 201. Priorities and Allocations Authorities. (a) The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads: (1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer; (2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy; (3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources; (4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation; (5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and (6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials. (b) The Secretary of each agency delegated authority under subsection (a) of this section (resource departments) shall plan for and issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources and establish standards and procedures by which the authority shall be used to promote the national defense, under both emergency and non-emergency conditions. Each Secretary shall authorize the heads of other agencies, as appropriate, to place priority ratings on contracts and orders for materials, services, and facilities needed in support of programs approved under section 202 of this order.(emphasis mine) The lengthy order carries on in this manner, but I've included this segment to give you just a snippet of how radical this order is. Reading through the parts I've emphasized, this reads "The authority of the President to promote national defense and to allocate materials ... as deemed necessary is delegated to these Secretaries in peacetime." Placating arguments have been made that this is "business as usual", but that is only a half-truth. Government micromanaging civilian industry for the top priority of "national defense" was 'business as usual' last week...but only if you were watching Battlestar Galactica reruns. As Earth is currently devoid of any impending Cylon threat, I question the legitimacy of government seizing authority in this manner. If this analysis comes across as alarmist, it may well be because the material covered is indeed alarming. If any other conclusion can be reached by rational examination of the order's text, I welcome it in the comments section. To those of you who may not agree that this is a power grab, I challenge you to find anything in this order that says it is not in effect except in case of emergency. Everything in it alludes to "even in peacetime" or "in emergency and non-emergency". This is not a 'Democrat' or 'Republican' issue. Americans from all over the political spectrum should be concerned about this unprecedented grasp for power, as well as the lack of coverage from major news networks. Why are Continuity of Government plans, dreamt up to combat the worst-case nuclear holocaust scenario, being seized upon to grab power in peacetime? Conscientious Americans need to demand answers from their Executive Branch. This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

My take - I do not think of this as a "Dem" issue or another reason why you should fear Obama. It may suit the conservative urge to blame the ideology of the "other side". To find further fault with the someone you already do not like, trust, or agree with. They have a face and a name and make an easy target for your discontent. Too easy.

Rather this is a Big-Government-out-of-control problem. And it would not make any difference who is in the White House.

Government is an institution. Like all institutions, it is self-preserving. The checks and balances are essential and must be maintained. Otherwise the institution starts to act in its own interests. Pure faceless mechanics.

1. If this is power centralization by a president, it is business as usual.2. Would anyone really rather that the president wait until war or emergency to plan the reaction? That seems like a recipe for disaster to me.3. The Defense Production Act, as amended, has been used, in peacetime. As an example, "Presidents William J. Clinton and George W. Bush invoked DPA powers, in conjunction with those granted in the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (P.L. 95-621, 92 Stat. 3350), to ensure that emergency supplies of electrical power and natural gas continued flowing to California utilities, deflecting threatenedelectrical blackouts" (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS20587.pdf, p. 2).

“I refuse to take ‘No’ for an answer,” said President Obama this week as he claimed new powers for himself in making recess appointments while Congress wasn’t legally in recess. The chief executive’s power grab in naming appointees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board has been depicted by administration supporters as one forced upon a reluctant Obama by Republican intransigence. But this isn’t the first example of the president’s increasing tendency to govern with executive-branch powers. He has already explained that “where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves.” On a variety of issues, from immigration to the environment to labor law, that’s just what he’s been doing—and he may try it even more boldly should he win reelection. This “go it alone” philosophy reflects an authoritarian trend emerging on the political left since the conservative triumph in the 2010 elections.

The president and his coterie could have responded to the 2010 elections by conceding the widespread public hostility to excessive government spending and regulation. That’s what the more clued-in Clintonites did after their 1994 midterm defeats. But unlike Clinton, who came from the party’s moderate wing and hailed from the rural South, the highly urban progressive rump that is Obama’s true base of support has little appreciation for suburban or rural Democrats. In fact, some liberals even celebrated the 2010 demise of the Blue Dog and Plains States Democrats, concluding that the purged party could embrace a purer version of the liberal agenda. So instead of appealing to the middle, the White House has pressed ahead with Keynesian spending and a progressive regulatory agenda.

Much of the administration’s approach has to do with a change in the nature of liberal politics. Today’s progressives cannot be viewed primarily as pragmatic Truman- or Clinton-style majoritarians. Rather, they resemble the medieval clerical class. Their goal is governmental control over everything from what sort of climate science is permissible to how we choose to live our lives. Many of today’s progressives can be as dogmatic in their beliefs as the most strident evangelical minister or mullah. Like Al Gore declaring the debate over climate change closed, despite the Climategate e-mails and widespread skepticism, the clerisy takes its beliefs as based on absolute truth. Critics lie beyond the pale.

The problem for the clerisy lies in political reality. The country’s largely suburban and increasingly Southern electorate does not see big government as its friend or wise liberal mandarins as the source of its salvation. This sets up a potential political crisis between those who know what’s good and a presumptively ignorant majority. Obama is burdened, says Joe Klein of Time, by governing a “nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive,” as the title of his story puts it, without the guidance of our president. But if the people are too deluded to cooperate, elements in the progressive tradition have a solution: European-style governance by a largely unelected bureaucratic class.

The tension between self-government and “good” government has existed since the origins of modern liberalism. Thinkers such as Herbert Croly and Randolph Bourne staked a claim to a priestly wisdom far greater than that possessed by the ordinary mortal. As Croly explained, “any increase in centralized power and responsibility . . . is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition” and the fact that “the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.”

During the first two years of the Obama administration, the progressives persuaded themselves that favorable demographics and the consequences of the George W. Bush years would assure the consent of the electorate. They drew parallels with how growing urbanization and Herbert Hoover’s legacy worked for FDR in the 1930s. But FDR enhanced his majority in his first midterm election in 1934; the current progressive agenda, by contrast, was roundly thrashed in 2010. Obama may compare himself to Roosevelt and even to Lincoln, but the electorate does not appear to share this assessment.

After the 2010 thrashing, progressives seemed uninterested in moderating their agenda. Left-wing standard bearers Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation and Robert Borosage of the Institute for Policy Studies went so far as to argue that Obama should bypass Congress whenever necessary and govern using his executive authority over the government’s regulatory agencies. This autocratic agenda of enhanced executive authority has strong support with people close to White House, such as John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, a left-liberal think tank. “The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy,” Podesta has written. “These authorities can be used to ensure positive progress on many of the key issues facing the country.”

Podesta has proposed what amounts to a national, more ideological variant of what in Obama’s home state is known as “The Chicago Way.” Under that system, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune explains, “citizens, even Republicans, are expected to take what big government gives them. If the political boss suggests that you purchase some expensive wrought-iron fence to decorate your corporate headquarters, and the guy selling insurance to the wrought-iron boys is the boss’ little brother, you write the check.” But the American clerisy isn’t merely a bunch of corrupt politicians and bureaucratic lifers, and the United States isn’t one-party Chicago. The clerisy are more like an ideological vanguard, one based largely in academe and the media as well as part of the high-tech community.

Their authoritarian progressivism—at odds with the democratic, pluralistic traditions within liberalism—tends to evoke science, however contested, to justify its authority. The progressives themselves are, in Daniel Bell’s telling phrase, “the priests of the machine.” Their views are fairly uniform and can be seen in “progressive legal theory,” which displaces the seeming plain meaning of the Constitution with constructions derived from the perceived needs of a changing political environment. Belief in affirmative action, environmental justice, health-care reform, and redistribution from the middle class to the poor all find foundation there. More important still is a radical environmental agenda fervently committed to the idea that climate change has a human origin—a kind of secular notion of original sin. But these ideas are not widely shared by most people. The clerisy may see in Obama “reason incarnate,” as George Packer of The New Yorker put it, but the majority of the population remains more concerned about long-term unemployment and a struggling economy than about rising sea levels or the need to maintain racial quotas.

Despite the president’s clear political weaknesses—his job-approval ratings remain below 50 percent—he retains a reasonable shot at reelection. In the coming months, he will likely avoid pushing too hard on such things as overregulating business, particularly on the environmental front, which would undermine the nascent recovery and stir too much opposition from corporate donors. American voters may also be less than enthusiastic about the Republican alternatives topping the ticket. And one should never underestimate the power of even a less-than-popular president. Obama can count on a strong chorus of support from the media and many of the top high-tech firms, which have enjoyed lavish subsidies and government loans for “green” projects.

If Obama does win, 2013 could possibly bring something approaching a constitutional crisis. With the House and perhaps the Senate in Republican hands, Obama’s clerisy may be tempted to use the full range of executive power. The logic for running the country from the executive has been laid out already. Republican control of just the House, argues Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., has made America ungovernable. Obama, he said during the fight over the debt limit, needed to bypass the Constitution because, as in 1861, the South (in this case, the Southern Republicans) was “in a state of rebellion” against lawful authority. Beverley Perdue, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, concurred: she wanted to have elections suspended for a stretch. (Perdue’s office later insisted this was a joke, but most jokes aren’t told deadpan or punctuated with “I really hope someone can agree with me on that.” Also: Nobody laughed.)

The Left’s growing support for a soft authoritarianism is reminiscent of the 1930s, when many on both right and left looked favorably at either Stalin’s Soviet experiment or its fascist and National Socialist rivals. Tom Friedman of the New York Times recently praised Chinese-style authoritarianism for advancing the green agenda. The “reasonably enlightened group” running China, he asserted, was superior to our messy democracy in such things as subsidizing green industry. Steven Rattner, the investment banker and former Obama car czar, dismisses the problems posed by China’s economic and environmental foibles and declares himself “staunchly optimistic” about the future of that country’s Communist Party dictatorship. And it’s not just the gentry liberals identifying China as their model: labor leader Andy Stern, formerly the president of the Service Employees International Union and a close ally of the White House, celebrates Chinese authoritarianism and says that our capitalistic pluralism is headed for “the trash heap of history.” The Chinese, Stern argues, get things done.

A victorious Obama administration could embrace a soft version of the Chinese model. The mechanisms of control already exist. The bureaucratic apparatus, the array of policy czars and regulatory enforcers commissioned by the executive branch, has grown dramatically under Obama. Their ability to control and prosecute people for violations relating to issues like labor and the environment—once largely the province of states and localities—can be further enhanced. In the post-election environment, the president, using agencies like the EPA, could successfully strangle whole industries—notably the burgeoning oil and natural gas sector—and drag whole regions into recession. The newly announced EPA rules on extremely small levels of mercury and other toxins, for example, will sharply raise electricity rates in much of the country, particularly in the industrial heartland; greenhouse-gas policy, including, perhaps, an administratively imposed “cap and trade,” would greatly impact entrepreneurs and new investors forced to purchase credits from existing polluters. On a host of social issues, the new progressive regime could employ the Justice Department to impose national rulings well out of sync with local sentiments. Expansions of affirmative action, gay rights, and abortion rights could become mandated from Washington even in areas, such as the South, where such views are anathema.

This future can already been seen in fiscally challenged California. The state should be leading a recovery, not lagging behind the rest of the country. But in a place where Obama-style progressives rule without effective opposition, the clerisy has already enacted a score of regulatory mandates that are chasing businesses, particularly in manufacturing, out of the state. It has also passed land-use policies designed to enforce density, in effect eliminating the dream of single-family homes for all but the very rich in much of the state.

A nightmare scenario would be a constitutional crisis pitting a relentless executive power against a disgruntled, alienated opposition lacking strong, intelligent leadership. Over time, the new authoritarians would elicit even more opposition from the “dodos” who make up the majority of Americans residing in the great landmass outside the coastal strips and Chicago. The legacy of the Obama years—once so breathlessly associated with hope and reconciliation—may instead be growing pessimism and polarization.

Fred Siegel, a contributing editor of City Journal, is scholar in residence at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. Joel Kotkin is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University.

Agreed. The open mic talk clearly raises questions about what the big lib has in store for Americans whether they like it or not once he no longer has to worry about his poll numbers. What I do take note as that even MSM types are playing the open mic thing. CNN and I think ABC. I am surprised they didn't blow it off. Of course the Obama minions will be out in force making up some sort of phoney concoction that tries to spin it all away.

My post from the Russia thread:

"This certainly makes one speculate that Obama, if he wins, will absolutely cut lose on his leftist agenda far beyond what we have seen."

"If this is power centralization by a president, it is business as usual."

True but business as usual is exactly what the Obama phenomenon opposed. Now the bumper sticker has no meaning or a very different meaning if you even see one. Being hip and aware and progressive and open to the public and power to the people populism with the sticker on your Prius in 2008 became business as usual in a Washington DC cynical sense. Today the logo and mantra of hope only means that our czars are better than your czars, our mandates are better than your mandates, our guys in the revolving door of advisers and influence peddlers are smarter than your guys selling influence, our backroom cornhusker exemption deals to get healthcare done are better than your back room deals, and our national security back room negotiations are conducted better when we don't have to face the scrutiny of another election.

Open microphone comments give a small window into what he is thinking, where the teleprompter and carefully crafted interviews do not. He will govern better without the burdens of oversight and accountability and that is front and central on his mind - is my read. Yes, Pres. Obama is not the first or only elected official to think that thought but this was in the context (my take) of him having more flexibility to negotiate more terms away to the perceived liking of the Russians - after giving up missile defense for them to the surprise of committed allies previously. It brings to mind these other examples like the back room deals for one state here and another there on healthcare. Of course we should not presume to know his meaning or context; he could have playing mind games to our advantage with the Russians. But the question was opened, what will the policy shift across the board be when the electoral accountability ends? Having independents ponder that question is to the conservatives' advantage and having conservatives ponder that question brings fire and passion to the campaign.

That's fine Doug, and I take your point. My point, however, was taken from the title of the article I was responding to, which is "Op-Ed: Obama's Executive Order, business as usual?" And the author claims that President Obama has moved beyond business as usual. I disagreed.

"If this is power centralization by a president, it is business as usual."

True but business as usual is exactly what the Obama phenomenon opposed. Now the bumper sticker has no meaning or a very different meaning if you even see one. Being hip and aware and progressive and open to the public and power to the people populism with the sticker on your Prius in 2008 became business as usual in a Washington DC cynical sense. Today the logo and mantra of hope only means that our czars are better than your czars, our mandates are better than your mandates, our guys in the revolving door of advisers and influence peddlers are smarter than your guys selling influence, our backroom cornhusker exemption deals to get healthcare done are better than your back room deals, and our national security back room negotiations are conducted better when we don't have to face the scrutiny of another election.

Open microphone comments give a small window into what he is thinking, where the teleprompter and carefully crafted interviews do not. He will govern better without the burdens of oversight and accountability and that is front and central on his mind - is my read. Yes, Pres. Obama is not the first or only elected official to think that thought but this was in the context (my take) of him having more flexibility to negotiate more terms away to the perceived liking of the Russians - after giving up missile defense for them to the surprise of committed allies previously. It brings to mind these other examples like the back room deals for one state here and another there on healthcare. Of course we should not presume to know his meaning or context; he could have playing mind games to our advantage with the Russians. But the question was opened, what will the policy shift across the board be when the electoral accountability ends? Having independents ponder that question is to the conservatives' advantage and having conservatives ponder that question brings fire and passion to the campaign.

"A conversation between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was caught on a microphone that neither man realized was live. 'On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved,' Obama said. 'But it's important for [incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin] to give me space ... This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.' 'I understand,' Medvedev responded. 'I will transmit this information to Vladimir.' ... This unfortunate hot-mic exchange will have security implications, and it will surely sour our relations with allies in that part of the world. But as much as America's allies might be angered by Obama's words, Americans should be even more so. Their president -- the man charged with conducting America's foreign policy and overseeing its defense -- told another world leader that he is willing to make concessions on an important issue once he has finally and permanently escaped accountability to them. ... Set aside the important question of missile defense -- Obama was a skeptic on that long before he ran for president. This magic microphone moment calls into question Obama's concept of government service. If he is acting in Americans' interests, why must he hide his intentions until his second term? The incident also suggests a rather dim view of American citizens -- as rabble unable to grasp the pros and cons of issues like missile defense. ... This new incident with Medvedev ... sends a message about Obama. His real foreign policy is not necessarily the foreign policy he wants Americans to think he is conducting." --The Washington Examiner

Pay No Attention to Obama Marching With the New Black PanthersKatie Pavlich News Editor, Townhall Oct 05, 2011 01:08 PM ESTSign-Up Andrew Breitbart over at BigGovernment.com has obtained exclusive photos of President Barack Obama marching as a U.S. Senator in 2007 with the New Black Panther Party before he was elected in 2008.

Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007.

The photographs, captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed, are the latest evidence of the mainstream media’s failure to examine Obama’s extremist ties and radical roots.

Breitbart also writes:

In addition, the new images raise questions about the possible motives of the Obama administration in its infamous decision to drop the prosecution of the Panthers for voter intimidation.

The images, presented below, also renew doubts about the transparency of the White House’s guest logs–in particular, whether Panther National Chief Malik Zulu Shabazz is the same “Malik Shabazz” listed among the Obama administration’s early visitors.

Justice Department whistleblower J. Christian Adams has even more substantial, clear photos of Obama marching with the Black Panthers in his new book Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.

Among those appearing with Obama was Shabazz, the Panther leader who was one of the defendants in the voter intimidation case that Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed. Also present was the Panthers’ “Minister of War,” Najee Muhammed, who had called for murdering Dekalb County, Georgia, police officers with AK-47’s and then mocking their widows.

This is Malik Shabazz:

President Obama has been exposed, again, for his radical roots, but by all means, let's continue to accuse the tea party of racism with no evidence. Also, pay no attention to the details of the Black Panther Voter indimidation case, afterall, we just shouldn't give a darn, right Kirsten?